How To Play Roulette - A Beginner's Guide

The first form of roulette was invented during the 1700s in France, and ever since that day people have gathered around the table to play this immensely popular casino game. Now that you are here, we assume that you are interested in learning how to play roulette yourself.

Maybe you have struck luck already because this guide is written with the goal of being the best roulette guide for Indian players. If we succeeded or not is up to you to decide. Either way, we have to warn you.

Even though roulette is one of the easiest casino games you can play, this guide is long. If you want to become an expert roulette player, we recommend you read the entire article. However, if you are looking to refresh your memory with some useful information, feel free to click the content overview below and jump directly to the section most relevant for you.

We’re starting off this guide on how to play roulette by looking at the game rules. Even though roulette is quite easy to play for many, the game has a lot of rules. Luckily the rules are easy to remember and especially easy to follow in the online version of the game.

To best describe the rules for roulette we have structured this part like it is played. We start off by introducing the gameplay before moving on to getting chips and finish off with what happens if you win. Before you get bored, let’s begin this journey through the roulette table rules.

Roulette can look nice and simple to the naked eye, and it can be. If you want to become an expert, however, there are quite a lot of rules you need to know by heart. Who better then, than gambling experts through 40 years to teach you?

To make everything a bit easier to understand, we have divided the different steps in the gameplay process into sections. If you promise us to read them carefully, we can promise you that you will be a better player going out, than coming in. The first step in gameplay is getting chips, which is a logical place to start.

When you enter a land-based casino and see a roulette table for the first time, you may wonder where everyone got their chips. Casinos don’t want money to fly around and the solution to that is selling chips. The chips are sold in a booth or in the reception of a land-based casino, and you need them to be allowed at the table. When you finish, you can revisit the same place you got the chips, to sell them back to the casino.

If you are playing an online casino or are thinking of becoming an online casino player, things are a bit different. When you enter a roulette table, your account balance follows you and gets transformed automatically to roulette chips. When you leave the table, all your chips get transitioned back to real money.

Knowing when to bet is essential knowledge when playing roulette in a land-based casino. To understand when it’s betting time, we need to know what a ‘Dolly’ is and what purpose it has. A dolly can be a small figure, puck or buck and when this is placed on the table, you can’t make any bets. When the Dolly is removed, you are allowed to make bets. Usually, players make their own bet, but croupiers will help inexperienced players.

When playing online roulette, the Dolly may or may not be there, depending on the table you are playing. The reason for this is that in online roulette, they can simply remove the betting panel whenever you are not allowed to make a bet. The Dolly then becomes more of a graphic feature. Whenever the betting panel is showing, you can make a bet in online roulette.

Now that you know when to bet both in a land-based casino, and in an online casino, we will take a closer look at how you bet. How you place your stake is important both to what numbers you are betting on and the potential payout of your bet.

The easiest kind of bet to understand and make is the ‘Straight-Up’ bet. This is a bet you can place on random numbers and outside segments. To place this bet, you place your chip inside the frames of the cell.

The next possible bet to make in roulette is the ‘Street’ bet. Similar to other games, this bet will cover several numbers in a row. You place this bet on the line between the outside bets and the row where your numbers are and it will cover 3 numbers.

The ‘Line’ bet is placed in a corner between the outer line and one of the inner lines. When doing that, you will cover both streets the chip touches, adding up to 6 numbers.

When making a ‘Corner’ bet, you place your chip on the corner between 4 numbers. When you do that, you will cover the 4 numbers the chip touches.

Sometimes you want to cover 2 segments with one chip. This is what the ‘Split’ bet is about. Place this on the line between two numbers in order to do a split bet.

The ‘Five Number’ bet is a bet that only applies to tables with double 0, confirmed by the segments 0 and 00 on the end of the table. To make this bet, you place the chip on the outer line corner between 00 and 3. This bet will cover 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3, which gives a total of 5 numbers.

Knowing when to stop betting in roulette can be an art by itself. Luckily, it is quite easy when you know the rules of roulette. In a land-based casino, the croupier plays an important role in this. When betting is over, the croupier will wave one of his or her hand over the table and say out loud that betting is over.

In an online casino, the betting stops when the betting panel is removed or made inactive. This makes it impossible for you to make a bet when you are not allowed to.

When the ball lands in a segment of the land-based roulette wheel, the croupier will call out the number and place the Dolly on the corresponding number on the table. From time to time you will find a table where the croupier also calls out if it’s odd or even, red or black etc.

When the ball lands on the online roulette wheel, the croupier will too call out the number. In addition to the call out, the number will appear on your screen, making it clear and obvious where the ball landed.

In both versions, the payouts will be distributed to the winners right after. The croupier will keep the chips lost each round.

Now that you have reached this part, you have played a full round of roulette. In a land-based casino, the Dolly will be on the table while the croupier is distributing the winnings. When the croupier removes the Dolly, you are allowed to place your bets again.

In the online version, the betting panel will appear or become active again when it’s time to place your bets again.

Now that we have gone through all the rules of roulette, it’s common to feel that this is a bit confusing. However, we can assure you, when you start playing, it will all make sense and become simple very quickly.

We’ve learned that the Dolly is essential when betting is allowed and when it is not in a land-based casino, while most of the betting procedure is done by a computer in online roulette.

The mechanics in online roulette makes it very much easier for a player to not break any rules while playing, making the online version a good arena to practice your roulette skills before visiting a land-based casino.

Remembering how to place your bet is the most difficult for beginners. That is why we have made the image in this section easy to download. Feel free to save it on your computer or mobile for use when you play roulette next time.

Now that we know the rules of roulette, we will take a look at the types of bets you can make when playing roulette. When you play the single 0 versions, there will be 10 different kinds of bets available to you. When playing a double 0 version, you will be presented with 11 types of bets.

We have split the bets into categories and written a nice little description for them. We didn’t stop there though, as you will find graphics next to the description, showcasing how the bets are looking with chips on the table.

The part about outside bets closes off the section where we focus solely on how to play roulette, and we are transitioning over to the things you need to know for you to become a roulette player on an expert. If you’re not sure what house edge and RTP are, we can recommend our article about house edge & how casinos make money.

We will now take a closer look at the RTP and house edge on the different segments in roulette. Included in that assessment is both single and double 0 roulette types. What really knocks this section out of the ballpark, is the inclusion of RTP and house edge on the tables provided by the biggest game providers, Evolution and Pragmatic Play.

In a casino you will find different kinds of roulette types. The most common types are single zero and double zero. The types are often known as European (single) and American (double) roulette. Both are considered entertaining but there is an important difference between them you should know about.

In European roulette, you find a total of 37 segments on the wheel, while on American roulette you have one more, adding up to 38 segments on the wheel. Hitting 0 or 00 pays out 35 times the stake, which means that the Return To Player  (RTP) is better and the house edge is lower on European roulette (single 0).

Borrowed from our brilliant partners at 888casino, we have found this great overview for you. We used the information provided by them, and added some calculations to it, making it very easy for you to compare the house edge and RTP of the two.

When playing online you will notice that the online casinos offer a plentitude of roulette tables, and very few of them are named European, American, Single Zero or Double Zero. We wanted to make it easier for you to find the house edge and rtp of these tables as well.

In the table below, we have gathered all the roulette tables available from the two most popular providers, Evolution and Pragmatic Play. In the same list you will find the respective house edge and RTP of those games.

After looking at house edge and RTP in roulette, it is logical to look at the payouts next. In the payout table below, we have created an overview of the different bets and their respective payouts. The highest payout is connected to a single number and the lowest is connected to the 50/50 bets.